


(stay)

by orphan_account



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, mildangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: the heartbreak that comes with every love story — it hurts





	(stay)

A week ago, they were happy.

“Jisungie, catch!” Minho grinned as he tossed Jisung his bottle. The younger boy beamed at him as he sat down beside him, leaning his head against his shoulder as they took a break from the dance practice.

Woojin cooed to Chan about how cute they were, squished up in the corner of the practice room with the brightest smiles on their faces. Anyone could see how happy they were. As long as they were together, they were always happy. 

Jisung slung his arm awkwardly around Minho’s shoulders as they walked to the park, a daily thing they did after each practice session. “You’re too short for that, Jisungie.” Minho teased.

Jisung huffed in frustration. “You always wear those shoes that make you so tall.” He pouted as Minho laughed at him again.

Sliding Jisung’s arm off his shoulder, Minho interlinked their fingers instead, staring straight ahead at the setting sun, a light blush on his face as a grin fell on Jisung’s face.

“If you continue smiling so much, your cheeks are going to hurt.” Minho said cheekily.

“Shut up, hyung. You’re the one that’s smiling the most.”

“Aye, drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold.”

“Okay.”

It was times like these that Jisung treasured the most, times where it was just the two of them together, the stress of training momentarily forgotten, where all that mattered was the hand of the boy he was in love with, warm in his own.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” Jisung murmured. “To debut? As nine of us?”

Minho hummed in response. “I hope so.”

“Promise me we’ll debut together, hyung.” Jisung stopped walking, and gazed at Minho.

“Sungie, you know I can’t make promises that I don’t know if I can keep.” Minho smiled sadly. “I’ll try.”

Jisung doesn’t say anything after that, wrapping his arms around the older’s waist in a bone-crushing hug, as if that was the last time he would be able to do that.

  
But good times like these didn’t last. They never did. Life was cruel enough to them, cruel enough to take this precious thing they had, crushing it and tearing it apart until both were left broken, shattered, incomplete.

The news of Minho’s elimination hung in the heavy silence of the practice room. No one said anything, everyone was stunned at the news. It had always been nine or nine. What were they going to do without Minho? What was Jisung going to do?

The silence was broken when a sob escaped Jisung, and then more, so much that he couldn’t stop crying, he couldn’t hold it back in anymore. With tears blurring his eyes, he ran out of the room, away from everything.

Why did life have to be so cruel? They were so close. They almost made it together. What was he supposed to do now, when the boy he loved was forced to leave him?

He didn’t know how long he sat at the bench for, or how his legs even led him to the park he frequented. (With Minho.) He didn’t know how long he cried for, the tears couldn’t seem to stop, it flowed out of him like an endless stream, trying to wash away his pain and his sorrow.

He didn’t notice Minho until he sat down next to the younger, slipping his hand into his grasp in a tight grip. “I’ll give you your favourite hot chocolate if you stop crying?”

Upon hearing this, Jisung only sobbed harder, flinging himself into Minho’s embrace, desperately trying to get the elder to stay. “Don’t leave me, hyung.” He whispered.

Minho smiled weakly, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a smile that didn’t manage to overshadow the pain in his eyes as he used his thumb to tenderly brush away the tears on Jisung’s cheeks. “I have to.” He replies softly, watching as Jisung’s eyes shone with more unshed tears, his heart breaking with every sob that Jisung let out.

_Stay with me. Or at least let me come with you._

The unsaid words were stuck in Jisung’s throat. Minho hugs him, holding him tight against his chest. Neither speaks for a long while. It’s a desperate hug, one that conveys their unspoken feelings, their unsaid words, their longing.

It was Minho who finally pushed Jisung away gently. The sun was setting, with its light pink hues bleeding into a darker blue, before the sky slowly turned black and the stars emerged like fireflies lighting up the darkness. 

“I have to go.” Minho’s smile once again doesn’t reach his eyes. He places the cup of hot chocolate beside Jisung. “Promise me you’ll make it to debut?”

”I can’t debut without you, hyung.”

“Do it for me, Sungie. Please?”

Jisung didn’t meet his eyes. Minho turned to walk away, each step he took shattering the younger’s heart into smithereens, like plates falling off a shelf one by one. Jisung watched in silence as his silhouette disappeared around the corner.

_Stay._

He sits there for an hour or so. Or more. He doesn’t know. He sits there until his hot chocolate turns cold, the way his world did when Minho left him.

Under the dim street lights, he sat there waiting, hoping, for the boy he loved to come back and say that everything was going to be alright. No one came back.

_Why didn’t you fight harder to stay?_


End file.
